He came, he saw, he was conquered. And he left India by raising a stink. But no one knows exactly what about. Ian Nepomniachtchi’s FIDE World Cup campaign was over in two short days, after a draw in the first game and defeat in the second game of the second round of the FIDE World Cup against Indian grandmaster Diptayan Ghosh.

Precisely one hour after his defeat to Ghosh, while many of the second round games were still going on in the playing hall at Resort Rio, Nepo was seen checking out and leaving the hotel, where he was staying. But not before he launched a vaguely-worded parting shot.

“I’d played in India before (in 2019 in Kolkata ), so I had a good idea of what the conditions would be like. But FIDE, to its credit, managed to surprise me. There’s nothing to say about the chess a

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